


Conversation Starter

by lastyoungrene_gay_de



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29481399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastyoungrene_gay_de/pseuds/lastyoungrene_gay_de
Summary: Something was seriously wrong with Dave's soulmate's parents, and he'd always planned on telling his soulmate as soon as he met them.enklave fest prompt: soulmate au
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 23
Kudos: 150
Collections: EnKlave Fest 2021





	Conversation Starter

**Author's Note:**

> before you read, please know i suck at writing endings, but i hope you enjoy anyway

The first thing Dave was going to ask his soulmate was how terrible their parents were. He hoped it would be how terrible  _ his _ parents were, but no one could ever be too sure. Sometimes soulmates didn’t really fit into what a person considered their sexuality, or maybe he’s just wrong about himself. But either way something was seriously wrong with Dave’s soulmate’s parents. 

Who the fuck names their child Number Four? Dave can list off the top of his head so many ways that’s fucked up. 

He had to admit, it made the problem some of his friends throughout his life have had where they both have common names so they have to just kind of hope they’re  _ actually _ each other’s soulmates, but  _ Number Four? _ Just spell a more traditional name weird! Nobody’s name should be a number, no matter how easy it makes them to identify them. 

But at least Dave had another leg up on everyone he knew; he had an easy conversation starter for when they met, that being:  _ what is wrong with your parents? _

But even then, Dave did his best to hide the name spelled out on his hip. He didn’t go swimming when he was young, he never used communal showers (or avoided them as best he could), dressed modestly to make sure it was covered at all times. He didn’t want to do that to his soulmate, make anyone that knew what his mark said expect an explanation from his soulmate once they met. 

When he shipped out after getting his draft card, he wondered if he would ever meet them. He wanted to. He wanted to meet the person everything in the universe decided would be best for him. He wanted to see if the universe was right. 

He’d tried dating outside his soulmate connection- plenty of people did, either because they liked someone else enough or because they thought the chances of ever meeting their soulmates were too low to hold out on- but it had never worked out. He’d never been able to really connect with somebody in the way he wanted. After a few short relationships he just decided to wait for Number Four. 

Waiting got hard once he shipped out, though. A lot of things regarding his soulmate got hard when he was in Vietnam. Hiding his mark got harder; he lost a lot of his control over when he did things like bathe and get dressed. If had to do it when other men were there he had no choice but to suck it up and accept that they were probably going to see his mark. 

It didn’t help that the rest of the guys would tell stories of their soulmate or their meeting or what they were hoping their soulmate was like on hard nights when they all needed a distraction. Daniel would talk about Jennifer or Jim would talk about Emily or they would ask  _ him _ questions about his name and what he hoped they were like. No one asked the question if he thought he was going to get a chance to meet them, so all he could do was keep waiting.

It got even harder when a new guy showed up at camp one night. Dave had no idea where he came from, and neither did anyone else. He was naked, bloody, untrained, and absolutely batshit crazy. He laughed when no one said anything, he talked to thin air, he was almost always high out of his mind, but he still managed to make the guys feel better. He told crazy stories and made crude jokes and always did his best to help when the war finally got to one of them and they broke down even though no one really seemed to do the same for him. 

Dave often found himself forgetting about Number Four completely when he was around. 

  
  


“What do you think about dating someone other than your soulmate?” Klaus asked softly a few weeks after he arrived. The two of them were alone, outside the tent when everyone else was asleep. They’d been doing that a lot since Klaus arrived, and it hadn’t made it any easier for Dave to stop considering that very thing. 

“I get it,” Dave said, looking at his feet hoping Klaus wouldn’t be able to read his expression. “Waiting is hard and sometimes it’s tempting to not give a shit and take a chance. Especially out here when we don’t know if we’re gonna live to see tomorrow. But in my experience it doesn’t work out.” He looked back up at Klaus when he finished his sentence. 

“You’ve done it?” Klaus asked, eyes wide. 

“Yeah, a few times,” Dave said. 

“Oh,” he said, tilting his head in confusion. “You don’t really seem like the type.”

“It’s never really worked out,” he admitted again shyly. “Now I’m waiting it out, though.” 

Klaus’ face, which had just been open and cheerful like it always was when the two of them were alone, fell. “You haven’t found them yet?” he asked softly, voice sad in a way Dave couldn’t decipher. He shook his head. “Oh.” He seemed to fold in on himself, hunching his shoulders and pulling his knees to his chest. 

“Why?” Dave asked. 

“I don’t know,” Klaus said, almost meekly. “I guess I just assumed you had.” 

“Nope,” he responded and shook his head slowly. “Nobody for me yet.” Klaus hummed and wrapped his arms around his legs, looking down at his hands from where he’d propped his chin on his knees. “What about you?” Dave asked carefully, unsure what he wanted the answer to be. 

“I thought so for a bit,” Klaus murmured without looking away from his hands. “But no. I guess I was wrong.” 

“Do you want to find them?” Dave asked, leaning toward Klaus to try to get a better look at his face. 

Klaus scoffed and shook his head a bit. “I always thought I didn’t care,” he said. “It made it easier to just fuck around and do what I had to to get drugs or a bed for the night.” Dave didn’t want to think about what he had to do for that. “But when I thought…” he trailed off and shook his head again. “When I thought I found them… I guess I was wrong again.” He shrugged. 

“I’m sorry,” Dave said. 

“Whatever,” Klaus grumbled. He stood up quickly and hurried away. He probably thought he was being inconspicuous, but Dave could see him raise a hand to his face to wipe tears away. He wanted to call out to him, he even opened his mouth to, but a small, annoying voice in his head told him it wasn’t his place. For some reason he believed it. 

  
  
  


They were on leave when he finally broke. 

They were at a bar. He’d been around Klaus most of the night. They’d been drinking and dancing and laughing, and when they snuck to a hidden corner Klaus looked nothing short of  _ magical _ with a loose smile, limbs relaxed so he was swaying with every miniscule movement. Watching him, Dave couldn’t help but smile with him. Klaus looked at him, making heavy eye contact, and before he could think better of it Dave was reaching up and putting a hand on his cheek. He seemed unphased, and even leaned into his palm. 

“You’re beautiful, you know that,” he said softly. 

Klaus smiled, real and easy. “I didn't know you thought that, Davey,” he giggled. 

“I thought I was obvious about it,” he responded. As Klaus leaned in a bit more, Dave couldn’t help but ask, “What’s your name, Klaus? On your mark?” 

Klaus stopped and blinked a few times and looked back up at Dave’s eyes. He looked hesitant for a moment before breathing out a soft,  _ “David.”  _

Dave chuckled softly, though it was bittersweet. “I wish it was me.” 

“I thought it was,” Klaus whispered, and Dave couldn’t wait anymore. He leaned the rest of the way in and kissed him. 

It wasn’t what he was expecting. He’d kissed people before, of course, but he was surprised by how different this was. Before kisses just felt like any other kind of touch, straightforward and simple, but this was different. He felt like something within him clicked, like this was  _ right _ , kissing Klaus was  _ right. _ Was he supposed to think that? To sound like this? Was he exaggerating because he’d wanted this for so long? Was it  _ supposed _ to feel like this? Or was this feeling just supposed to be for soulmates? 

Klaus’ hand came up and curled around the back of Dave’s neck, keeping him as close as he was. Dave pushed even more into the kiss, parting his lips when Klaus pressed in with his tongue. 

He let himself imagine, just for a moment, that he was Klaus’ David and, in some absolutely fucked up way, Klaus was Number Four. This was what he thought kissing his soulmate would feel like. He wanted this to be  _ it. _

Klaus pulled away and Dave couldn’t help the whine that came out of him when he realized it. He opened his eyes again, but Klaus was still so close to him all he could see was the green of his eyes. 

“Can we get out of here?” Klaus asked, lips brushing against Dave’s as he spoke. 

“Yeah,” Dave said, but had to say again because he was sure Klaus couldn’t hear it the first time. “Yes.” Klaus leaned in for another kiss before parting a moment later and leading Dave out of their hiding spot. 

They weaved and twisted through the crowd by the bar and on the dance floor and out the door. Klaus never let go of him, though he had a grip on his wrist rather than his hand so it looked more like he was being dragged reluctantly along instead of going willingly, which he very much was. They reached the hotel what felt like a lifetime later, and it took them way longer than Dave liked to get to his room. 

As soon as they got through the door Klaus was kissing him again, running his hands through his hair and pushing him up against the door to slam it shut. Dave didn’t waste any time wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him closer. As a moment passed and the kiss grew more and more heated, Dave wasn’t surprised when Klaus’ fingers started fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. Dave reached up to help him and soon they were pushing the shirt off his shoulders. He reached down to the bottom of Klaus’ too- short top and broke the kiss to pull it over his head. Once he’d thrown it to the floor, Dave went in to kiss him again, but Klaus put his hands on his bare chest to stop him. 

“Look, Dave,” he said quickly as if was unsure he actually wanted to say it, without looking Dave in the eye. “I’ve never really been in the position before of caring if I see someone’s mark so I don’t really know what to do here, but can I ask where your name is?” 

Dave can’t say he didn’t see this coming, or in a way  _ hope _ it was coming. He figured it would be easy to ignore someone’s mark if your relationship wasn’t anything other than physical, so if Klaus was worried about his mark he really did care about him that much. He knew Klaus went as far as to tell him he  _ hoped _ Dave was his soulmate, but there was still a part of him that worried. 

He leaned in to kiss him again, and even though he didn’t answer his question, Klaus let him. “Right hip,” Dave mumbled against his lips a moment later. Klaus vaguely nodded against him and brought his fingers up to run through his hair, making Dave moan. Before Klaus could do anything else that made Dave’s mind stop for a second, he had to pull away and breathlessly tell him, “I don’t care, Klaus. I don’t care about it.” Klaus looked at him for another moment before letting out something between a laugh and a scoff and pulling him off the door by hooking his fingers in the waistband of his pants. 

His eyes raked up and down Dave’s chest as he walked them toward the bed, biting his bottom lip and looking at Dave through his long lashes, as if Dave hadn’t practically admitted to being in love with him already. Because he was,  _ god _ Dave was fucking in love with him. 

However, Klaus’ face fell a bit with his gaze focused down and to the side. When Dave looked down to figure out what he was looking at, he saw that the way his fingers were pulling on his pants left a gap between the fabric and his skin right over his soulmate mark. He could probably see the very top of the text. 

“Yeah, I think something is wrong with their parents,” Dave tried to joke. “It’s a fucked up one.”

Klaus didn’t say anything, just pulled Dave closer and tugged the material of his pants down just enough to see the rest of the mark. Dave watched as his jaw went slack and the hand not holding his pants over his mouth. 

“Klaus?” he asked softly. “Klaus, what’s wrong?” 

When he finally looked back up at him he could see tears in his eyes. “Nothing- nothing’s wrong,” he said behind his hand. “My, uh, my dad was fucked up,” he added faintly. 

Dave furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head a little. “Klaus, what are you-” 

“So fucked up he numbered us,” he cut him off. Dave shut his mouth with an audible  _ click _ and felt his entire body go stiff as he processed the word. “All seven of us; one though seven. With me… right in the middle.” 

“Number Four,” Dave finished. Klaus pulled his hand away from his hip and brought it up to his face, cupping as his cheek as he nodded. “Oh my god,” he whispered. 

“I was fucking right,” Klaus said, voice thick with emotion as he smiled. “It is you.” 

“Thank god,” Dave said and leaned forward to kiss him again. Klaus wound his arms around his neck and kissed back. 

This kiss was different than the one they’d had just before the conversation. That one was heavy and taking them somewhere; this one was more relaxed. The first one was a lead up to sex, but this one was passionate and kissing for the sake of kissing. Dave smiled into the kiss and wrapped his arms around Klaus’ waist to pull him closer. 

“So exactly how terrible are your parents?” he asked between kisses. Klaus laughed, and Dave felt it in a huff against his lips. “Sorry, I always planned to bring it up when we met. Having a number as your mark makes you plan out the first conversation.” 

_ “So terrible,” _ Klaus said, then pulled back a little in thought. “Well, Dad was bad. Mom was okay once she came into the picture. Actually took care of us, cared, gave us real names.” 

“Oh? When was that?” Dave asked. 

“Eh,” Klaus hummed. “Probably around six or seven.” 

_ “Jesus,” _ Dave breathed out. 

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know,” Klaus said and kissed him again. Dave figured he was probably right, and let him keep kissing him. 

**Author's Note:**

> eyyy come talk to me abt tua on tumblr @ lastyoungrene-gay-de !!


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